i ^^ A .\ i: VV \' EAR 

G R E E 1 1 N G 



THE CAVALIER IN 
AMERICA 



3& 



LYON G. TYLER 




Sir Humphrey Gilbert 



THE CAVALIER IN 
AMERICA 



HB M 1913 



The Cavalier in America 

I. 



WESTWARD HO 



The twin sponsors of American colonization 
were two cavaliers during the days of Queen 
Elizabeth — Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his half- 
brother, Sir Walter Raleigh. They conceived the 
idea, that to destroy the superiority of Spain, 
England must plant a colony in the New World. 
Accordingly the former obtained a patent of colo- 
nization in IJ678, and attempted to establish a 
settlement in the neighborhood of Newfoundland. 
The attempt proved futile, and in the effort the 
noble Gilbert was drowned in the waves of the 
angry ocean. His last words will ever be kept 
in precious remembrance: "We are as near 
heaven by sea as by land." The latter — Sir 
Walter Raleigh — the most accomplished man of 
his age, and a cavalier in the best sense of the 



word, renewed the undertaking, and in 1587 
established a colony on Roanoke Island, in Pam- 
lico Sound. Success seemed to go with the enter- 
prise, and Queen Elizabeth gave the name Vir- 
ginia to all North America. 

But a crisis in the history of England arose, 
and the kingdom, confronted with the Armada 
and the whole embattled power of Spain, had to 
fight for her very existence In. the mighty 
strife, the little group of men, women and chil- 
dren on Roanoke Island were forgotten, and 
when succor, after three years, at length arrived, 
the colony had disappeared. 



II. 

THE FIRST ENGLISH KINGDOM IN AMERICA. 

In Spite of ill luck, Raleigh predicted that "he 
would yet live to see Virginia an English nation," 
and, when in 1605, Spain, humbled and shorn of 
power, made peace with England, the way was 
open to a necessary and certain access to the 
Western World. 

Then was formed a company — the Virginia 
Company of London — which combined the com- 
mercial designs of a joint stock corporation with 
a national and patriotic purpose of adding a fifth 
kingdom to England. The spirit of Gilbert and 
Raleigh was fostered in the great leaders of the 
company — Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Edwin Sandys, 
Nicholas Ferrar and Henry Wriothesley, Earl of 
Southampton. The new settlement was planted 
on Jamestown Island in James River, in the pres- 
ent State of Virginia, and held its own against 
every hardship, whether of climatic disease or 
Indian attack. When the civil war between the 
King and Parliament broke out in England, it 
became the favored place of refuge for hundreds 
of cavaliers who had taken part with King 
Charles. 



III. 

JAMESTOWN THE FIRST INVENTION. 

In estimating the influence of this colony on 
America and American institutions, the follow- 
ing statement is all that can be given in the brief 
space here allowed. As the first permanent colony 
of Great Britain, Jamestown may claim as its 
product, not only the present Virginia and South- 
land, but all the other English colonies in 
America, and, indeed, all the colonies of the 
present wide-spreading British Empire. She is 
the eldest child of England and the mother of 
the United States. Her successful settlement 
furnished the inspiration of English colonization 
everywhere, and she is, therefore, entitled to the 
credit of all ; for it was Lord Bacon who said 
that, '^As in the arts and sciences the first inven- 
tion is of more consequence than all the improve- 
ments afterwards, so in kingdoms or plantations 
the first foundation or plantation is of more noble 
dignity than all that followeth." 



IV. 

JAMESTOWN MOTHER OF NEW ENGLAND. 

It is interesting to know that Jamestown or 
Virginia has particular claims besides to being 
considered the mother of New England. In 
1 613 when the French had already occupied 
Maine, and their explorers were coasting along 
the shores of Massachusetts and Connecticut, it 
was a Virgmia Governor, Sir Thomas Gates, 
who sent an expedition from Jamestown, dis- 
lodged the French from their strongholds, and 
thus kept the country open till the Pilgrim 
Fathers came along. At this time these worthy 
people were enjoying the comforts of Holland 
and never dreaming of a settlement in America. 
And when, at last, in 1620, they decided to 
abandon their home in Holland, the only reason, 
according to Bradford, the Plymouth historian, 
that they did not go to Dutch Guiana, was be- 
cause the Virginia Company of London was able 
to point them to their colony at Jamestown and 
offer them land and protection. They finally sailed 
under a patent obtained for them from the 
company by the noble Sir Edwin Sandys, and 
it was only the accident of a storm that caused 



them to settle outside of the limits of the terri- 
tory of the London company, though still in 
Virginia. "The Mayflower Compact," under 
which they united at Cape Cod, followed pretty 
nearly the terrtis of the original London com- 
pany's patent. 

The influence of Jamestown was again felt in 
1622, after the arrival of Thomas Weston and 
his godless crew at Plymouth. The provisions 
were ''wholly spent," and it was only the oppor- 
tune arrival of two ships from Jamestown that 
saved the Plymouth colony from starvation. 
These ships, Bradford says, divided their pro- 
visions with the Pilgrims, and thus enabled them 
to get along ''till corn was ripe." Later, in 
1634, Sir John Harvey declared that "Virginia 
had become the granary of all his Majesty's 
Northern Colonies." 



V. 

THE CRADLE OF ENGLISH INSTITUTIONS. 

Virginia was the cradle of all the English 
institutions on the continent of America. There 
the first English marriage- was had; there the 
first child of English parentage was born ; there 
was the first trial by jury; there met the first 
law- making assembly ; there were the first chain 
of law courts, the first system of recordation of 
land grants, deeds and wills, the first written 
constitution for regulating the internal affairs of 
an English colony (the ordinance of i6i8)^ the 
first church, the first blockhouse, the first wharf, 
the first glass factory, the first iron works, the 
first silk worms reared, the first tobacco raised, 
the first peaches grown, the first brick house, 
the first State house, and the first free school 
established by English people (that of Benjamin 
Syms, 1635). 

VI. 

REPRESENTATION AND TAXES. 

In the assertion of the principle that taxation 
should go hand in hand with representation, 
Virginia led the way in 1624, and repeatedly 
afterwards insisted on the indissoluble character 
of the connection. 



VII. 

THE FIRST BLOW FOR POWER. 

In the French and Indian war, out of which 
sprang the measures that subsequently provoked 
American independence, it was Virginia that 
struck the first blow against the French. The 
result of that war was to destroy French rivalry 
and to open up the northwest territory to Eng- 
lish authority and ultimately American authority. 
The greatest American name of the war was a 
Virginian, George Washington, who was sprung 
from cavalier ancestry on all sides. 



VIII. 

THE ALARM BELL. 

Then again it was the cavalier colony of Vir- 
ginia that rallied the other colonies against the 
stamp act by the celebrated, resolutions of 
Patrick Henry, May 29, 1765. 



IX. 

LEADER UNDER THE REVENUE ACT. 

In the years of the revenue act, which suc- 
ceeded, thrbugh circumstances made the occa- 
sion for the first movements in other places, it 
was always Virginia that by some resolute and 
determined action of leadership solved the crisis 
that arose. There were four of these crises. 
The first was when Massachusetts, by her circu- 
lar letter in 1768, stirred up Parliament to de- 
mand that her patriot leaders be sent to England 
for trial. This crisis was solved by Virginia 
inviting all the colonies into the measure of non- 
importation, which forced Parliament to aban- 
don its position and to repeal all taxes except 
the duty on tea. Then in 1772, when, because 
of the affair of the sloop Gaspee in Rhode 
Island, the King imitated Parliament by renew- 
ing the policy of transporting Americans to Eng- 
land for trial, Virginia, by recommending a close 
union of the colonies, through the system of 
inter-colonial committees, averted the danger a 
second time, and caused the King and his coun- 
cillors to desist from their purpose. 



Then, in 1774, when the port of Boston was 
shut up by an act of Parliament, because of the 
action of a disguised and unauthorized mob in 
throwing the tea into Boston harbor, Virginia 
was the first colony to declare her sympathy with 
Boston, and the first, as a unit, to call for a 
Congress, and to that Congress she furnished the 
first president, Peyton Randolph, and the great- 
est orators, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry 
Lee. Finally, when a new crisis was created by 
the battle of Lexington in Massachusetts, the 
forward step was once more taken by the cava- 
liers of the South. While Boston was profess- 
ing, through her town meeting, her willingness 
''to wait, most patiently to wait," it was North 
Carolina, settled by Virginians, that instructed 
her delegates to concur with the delegates from 
the other colonies in declaring independence, and 
it was Virginia that commanded her delegates 
to propose independence. All the world knows 
that Thomas Jefferson, whose ancestors on both 
sides were cavaliers, drew up the "Declaration 
of American Independence," which has been 
styled by a well-known New England writer as 
the "most commanding and the most pathetic 
utterance in any age of national grievances and 
of national purposes." 



X. 

A CAVALIER THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY. 

During the war that ensued, Virginia contri- 
buted what all will allow was the soul of the war 
— the immortal cavalier, George Washington, 
whose immense moral personality accomplished 
more in bringing success than all the money 
employed, and all the armies placed in the field, 
and the war had its ending at Yorlctown, only a 
few miles from the original settlement at 
Jamestown. 



XI. 

CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

The cavalier State of Virginia was the first 
State in the world to proclaim absolute equality 
and freedom of religion to the peoples of all 
faiths — Christians, Jews, Mohammedan, etc. Her 
Declaration of Rights, by George Mason, and 
her statute for Religious Freedom, by Thomas 
Jefferson, stand unique in history. As the head- 
quarters, after the American Revolution, of the 
great Democratic Republican party, Virginia be- 
came the champion of the popular idea against 
the aristocratic notions of the Federalists, who 
had their headquarters in New England. Thus 
Virginia sowed the seed of civil and religious 
liberty throughout the United States. 

XII. 

FIRST TO FORBID THE SLAVE TRADE. 

Virginia was the first State in the world to 
impose penalties for engaging in the slave trade. 
Her cavalier representatives in the Federal Con- 
vntion of 1787 bitterly opposed the provision in 
the Constitution supported by the Puritan dele- 
gates from New England, permitting the slave 
trade for twenty years. 



XIII. 

THE CAVALIERS MAKE THE UNION A CONTINENTAL 

POWER. 

In the work of making a constitution for the 
new government and of organizing it, Virginia, 
as John Fiske says, furnished "four out of the 
five constructive statesmen engaged" — Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, Madison and Marshall, every one 
of them of cavalier stock. The fifth was Alexan- 
der Hamilton, a native of the West Indies and 
a New Yorker by adoption. In the matter of 
extending our territories it was the cavalier,^ 
George Rogers Clark, that conquered the North 
West Territory, now represented by five great 
States. And Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Cali- 
fornia, New Mexico and all the West were 
added to the Union by Virginian and Southern 
Presidents, thus trebling the area of the Republic 
and making it a continental power. 



XIV. 

THE RIGHTFUL NAME OF THE REPUBLIC. 

"United States of America" are merely words 
of description. They are not a name. The right- 
ful name of the Republic is the historic name 
(first given by the greatest of English queens 
and accepted by the Pilgrim Fathers in the 
"May Flower" compact) Virginia. 



XV. 

THE SUMMING UP. 

In conclusion, the work of the Cavalier may 
be Slimmed up thus : There can be no doubt 
that, while in financiering, in industrial results, 
and in the promotion of schools and education, 
he has been, largely owing to circumstances, out- 
distanced by his Puritan fellow-laborer, his 
work in the four great fields of colonization, 
statesmanship, jurisprudence and war, has been 
supreme. In the extension of territorial power, 
there never have been any superiors, in breadth 
of view, to Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir 
Walter Raleigh, and their successors, who ruled 
in the London company or in the colony, and, 
two centuries later, figured as Presidents of this 
great Republic (Washington, Jefiferson, Madi- 
son, Monroe, Harrison, Tyler and Taylor). In 
the exercise of the art of nation building, who 
can be named as superiors to Thomas Jefferson, 
James MaHison and James Monroe? In the 
domain of law, where are there superiors to 
John Marshall, Bushrod Washington, Philip P. 
Barbour, St. George Tucker and Spencer Roane ? 
And in war, what names breathe more of majesty 



and military talent than those of Washington, 
who led the armies of America to independence, 
and of Scott and Taylor, who carried the flag of 
the Union to the hall of the Montezumas, and 
of Robert E. Lee and George H. Thomas, Vir- 
ginians both, who in our Civil War represented, 
on opposing sides, the best virtues of the Cava- 
lier — the former, to such an extent that, by the 
common consent of the world, he has been placed 
among the purest men and greatest military 
characters of all history. 

And now again, in the year of our Lord 191 3, 
a native of Virginia has been vested with the 
control of the presidential office of the United 
States. Under Woodrow Wilson^ may the 

1 The term "cavalier," is a generic one, and in- 
cluded all who supported the just prerogatives of the 
Crown under Queen Elizabeth and the Stuarts, Wood- 
row Wilson is' a Presbyterian, but the Presbyterians in 
England were always for a limited monarchy; and, 
though they took up arms against King Charles I., in 
defence of the liberty of the subject, the great body of 
the Episcopalians in England had also in Parliament 
opposed his attacks. After the execution of Charles I., 
these two religious elements united in opposition to the 
Independents or Congregationalists, who were the real, 

distinctive Puritans. By their union, Charles II. was 

restored to th^throne ; and in subsequent years the most 
loyal supporters of the Stuarts were the Scotch Pres- 
byterians. 



Cavalier spirit, which solved the problems lead- 
ing to, and growing out of the American Revo- 
lution, successfully guide to the solution of the 
hardly less important problem of the present 
day! 



548 



* ^y ^ • ©lis * ^^ V> oVJ^M^* v^ 



t^ 




K-f 



4 o>. 









o V 



*<» >» 









v ,^ 




7. s^ ,G 




<i* * «. ^^^ » ■* ••?- On Deacidifled using the Bookkeeper process 

<?■ * ' "" x^ -^ Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide 

^> V ^VxoL'-v Treatment Date:..... 




.v.',yj 



PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES. L.P. 
1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



^^■^- 







r.s* .0^ 







^ ^^-n^. 




4 p^ 





















